Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television

by Ruth Barton (Editor), Harvey O'Brien (Editor)

Overview

This timely collection of essays considers the nature and direction of Irish film and television, and also explores the contributions of other media including radio and the internet to contemporary Irish culture. It includes topics such as the first Irish-language soap opera, the new Irish gangsters, Irish identity post-11 September, images of Belfast in recent Irish film, female punishment in Irish history and culture, and print and radio coverage of the 'Roy Keane' affair as a proving ground for new Irish masculinity. Keeping it Real reflects a desire to hear new voices on new topics, as well as a current popular and academic desire to extend the notion of Irishness to include not just the inhabitants of the State but also the wider diaspora - particularly of Great Britain and North America, questioning issues of national identity and ethnicity - and is therefore required reading for those interested in Irish film, media and cultural studies. Films discussed include The Crying Game, Veronica Guerin, Gangs of New York, Disco Pigs, Odd Man Out, The Boxer, Nothing Personal, I Went Down and Resurrection Man. Also featured is an exclusive interview with actor Stephen Rea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781903364956
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	01/19/2005
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ruth Barton and Harvey O'Brien are Irish Council for Humanities and Social Sciences postdoctoral research fellows working at the center for film studies at University College Dublin. Barton is the author of Jim Sheridan: Framing the Nation (2002) and the forthcoming The Real Ireland: The Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Notes on contributors	viii
	Introduction	1
Part 1	Real histories, new myths?
	The Prisoner's Wife and the Soldier's Whore: Female Punishment in Irish History and Culture	8
	'We're not fucking Eye-talians': The Gangster Genre and Irish Cinema	25
	Black and White and Collar Films: Exploring the Irish Film Archive Collections of Clerical Films	39
Part 2	Real lives: modern irish identities
	Irishness, Innocence and American Identity Politics Before and After 11 September	54
	Exodus, Arrival and Return: The Generic Discourse of Irish Diasporic and Exilic Narrative Films	69
	Vampire Troubles: Loyalism and Resurrection Man	78
Part 3	Real stories: narratives in fiction and non-fiction
	Telling Tales: Narrative, Evidence and Memory in Contemporary Documentary Film Practice	88
	Telling Our Story: Recording Audiovisual Testimonies from Political Conflict	100
	Hyperlinks, Changelings and the Digital Fireside	111
	The Boy from Mercury: Educating Emotionally through Universal Storytelling	121
Part 4	Real places: navigating visual spaces
	Topographies of Terror and Taste: the Re-imagining of Belfast in Recent Cinema	134
	Pobal Sobail: Ros na Run, TG4 and Reality	147
	'A Taxi from The West': The Ireland Text in Yves Boisset's Le Taxi mauve/The Purple Taxi	159
Part 5	Real paradigms: conceptualising the national
	Preparing to Fail: Gender, Consumption, Play and National Identity in Irish Broadcast Media Coverage of the 'Roy Keane affair' and the 2002 World Cup	172
	Keeping it Imaginary, Cultivating the Symbolic	185
Appendix	Interview with Stephen Rea	198
	Filmography	202
	Index	206